Impact of urban facilities spatial inequality on sustainable travel mode

Abstract

With the implementation of sustainable development objectives in developing countries, urban planning, land use regulation, and urban mobility policies are expected to help reduce inequalities in access to urban facilities. Urban transport policies are also expected to encourage travel by non-motorised modes and public transport. These are considered to be the sustainable modes of urban transport. In this paper, we investigate how inequality of urban facilities impacts trips made by sustainable modes in the city of Santiago de Chile. We use a Poisson regression model and its geographical extension, the geographically weighted Poisson regression model (GWPR). The results suggest that the inequality of urban facilities impacts trips made by sustainable modes. The variables with the highest relevance are the spatial distribution of mixed land use, the spatial distribution of urban services related to transport infrastructure, primary and secondary education, as well as the spatial distribution of demographic variables related to people's life cycle.

Fig 1. Municipalities of Santiago to be considered for analysis.

The municipalities are autonomous corporations under public law, with legal personality and assets, whose purpose is to satisfy the needs of the local community and ensure its participation in the economic, social, and cultural progress of the respective communes (Law Nº 18.695 de 2006. Constitutional Organic Law of Municipalities. Government of Chile).

Fig 2. Spatial distribution of GWPR model coefficients.

The colors reflect how the urban amenities included in the GWPR are distributed and concentrated in the space.